Some unconventionally-wrapped food

Some time ago, I went to the Kuta Bali food court in Farlim. Somehow I've delayed posting about it till now... because it really isn't that important. Just some not-so-usual food...

First is the mantou burger. The bun is a mantou-type bun (nice and soft). I took the chicken burger, because the pork burger was using minced meat instead of sliced meat. They also had other types of burger... for example salmon, but that was of course more expensive!

Then we tried fried chee cheong fun. There was the choice of mayonnaise or rojak sauce. The photo will tell you what we took!

The sauce was quite spicy... but pretty good. The chee cheong fun was rolled around a piece of crabstick, making it seafood chee cheong fun. The dish took a while to arrive... I think they rolled it up right after we ordered, and it was served piping hot. You can't see the filling with all the rojak sauce on it, so I took another photo after eating a bit:

There we can see the crabstick filling a little better. It was pretty good as a snack, but a little costly... this small portion cost us RM3+, almost RM4 I think (can't remember any more...). The mantou burger above was around RM5.

A new toy... or servant?

I bought a breadmaker recently. I have wanted to buy one for years. I remember seeing a demonstration at a friend's house in France. (I believe it was in Lyon, at the house of one of the ladies who had married a Frenchman... but I can't remember which one; we've been to a few of their houses!) I don't think we tried the bread though... I believe she was setting it on timer to have freshly-baked bread the next morning.

Then I saw one in my cousin's house. She gave me a hands-on tutorial that day, giving me the steps to make the bread from start to end. After that, I decided that yes, I would buy my own! (the same one, so that I could make full use of her experience)

The breadmaker arrived in just two days after I ordered it, delivered by Lazada.

I was buying an SKG 3920. But what I received was a MOX 3920. It looked exactly the same as my cousin's SKG, except that the three letters in the brand name had been replaced by three other letters. After some online searching, I think it is the same thing... either rebranded or having different brands for different regions.

view of the huge amount of options

view from top

I received the breadmaker on Tuesday, and I didn't try it out until today.

I got a scare when using it... because I think I almost failed my bread (due to some measurements). I was using a measuring cup (my cousin used a digital scale, and I'm buying one too, but it hasn't arrived yet) and I think the quantity of flour was too little. At my cousin's place, after five minutes of kneading, the dough had become a ball. But for me, it had become a thick liquid! I quickly did some online searching, and ended up adding flour and kneading time. Luckily I've seen how it should look like... or else I would probably have tried to bake some sticky goo!

Here's how it looked like when done:

flipped out
(The hole is due to the mixing paddle. I saw a piece of advice to have prettier bread: take out the paddle after the last mixing. Then you would just have a clean round hole. But it sounds like too much trouble to me... :P )

right side up

The loaf looks shorter than the one I made with my cousin. Probably because of the flour that was added later, or the quantity of flour... in the end I have no idea how much I put in. I just guessed a rough amount based on the remaining quantity of flour in the packet (I was using two new packets of bread flour and Japanese bread flour). Anyway I'm really glad it turned out fine... I will probably tweak the amount of ingredients gradually to make the bread to my preference (my cousin did that too), but at least it is proper bread!

The anchovy project

A few months back I posted about a recipe that called for anchovies in oil. It took me a while to find proper anchovies in oil and try it out again. The result was pretty similar to the first time when I used dried anchovies, so I don't think I will use anchovies in oil again (they are expensive!)

Anyway, I bought the anchovies when I was with some friends, and they asked me to take photos for them when I opened the can. So here you go...

the can

the contents

pulling out a fillet

The fillets fall apart really easily! The recipe called for slicing the anchovy fillets, but they simply fell apart (melted, actually) as I cut them, so in the end they were just a blob of anchovy paste.

I actually reserved two fillets for the pasta recipe, and started off with this other recipe of anchovy cake (cake aux anchois). My French teacher had made this appetizer cake for us when we were back in Angoulême (yes, a long, long time ago), and she gave us the recipe. But I had never tried it out because of the anchovies. So now that I had some anchovies, I decided to give it a try.

The recipe called for 100g of anchovies, and it was supposed to be baked in a loaf pan. But my can of anchovies was 46g, 25g drained. After taking out two fillets, I decided that the remaining would be around 15g, and I converted the rest of the recipe accordingly. Since the quantity was so little, I ended up with three cup-cakes. (to give you an idea of the quantity, I only had to use 22.5g of flour)

The original recipe was with anchovies and tomatoes, but my teacher had told us that we could replace the tomatoes with crabsticks, crabmeat or smoked salmon. I went with crabsticks, which are the easiest to find!  It turned out pretty well, I think. :)

Even though it turned out well, I don't think I will be making it again... simply because the anchovies are too costly. That tin of anchovies set me back around RM10! I can still make the pasta recipe with dried anchovies, but I'm not sure how I would put dried anchovies into this cake... I'll have to come up with an idea first.

The hokkien mee that went away

This morning I bought hokkien mee for breakfast, at a roadside stall in Relau. This is the best hokkien mee in Relau so far. While checking whether I had posted about this stall before (which I haven't), I found this older post about a different hokkien mee. That one is for dinner (it is less spicy now though), and this one is for breakfast. This one was actually not spicy enough for me, so I didn't like it that much at first. But after asking them to give me extra chilli, it has won over the night stall.

Now for the photos (I bought it for take-away) :

before pouring the soup (so that you can see the ingredients a little better)

after pouring the soup (without mixing)

This is the same stall I mentioned in another post, where the aunty gave me extra noodles (she is still doing it... this bowl is supposedly a small one but the noodles are a little more than usual). The stall only opens during weekends, and once in a while she will just stop selling without notice. A few months back, she stopped for ages and I thought she had retired for good, but suddenly she came back a few weeks ago. She said that she had moved to Singapore (staying there half or most of the time). This morning she told me that she would be selling for three days this week and next week (both are long weekends), and then she would be leaving to Singapore again... and won't be back till March next year. So this is definitely on my breakfast list for next weekend!

Green lights

Last Friday's theme was green. I got the idea of taking a photo of traffic lights when they were green. But it turned out harder than I thought to get a good photo. Looking at the photos, we do not see that the main subjects are the green lights. Only in night shots, we would have bright blotches of green which overshadow everything else in the photo. However, I did not want green blotches. I wanted green lights that could be seen with the traffic lights they were attached to.

In the end, I selected these two photos from all those I had taken. The first one was taken near Queensbay Mall, just before turning at the junction to enter the parking lot. It was in the evening and drizzling, so the sky is gloomy and there are rain spots on my windshield.

The second one was taken on a part-cloudy, part-sunny morning on the way to work. I like the lighting here better. But the background does not look as majestic as Queensbay Mall and the nice little tower opposite it (in the first pic). Since I am unable to choose one picture, I guess I will post both and let others tell me which one they prefer.

Déjà-vu rant

The latest idiotic response, again triggered by a friend's wedding (should I stop attending friends' weddings?)

So, this person is going to a mutual friend T's wedding. When I asked her what time she planned to go (yeah, I should really stop asking), she said that she would be carpooling, so it would depend on the driver. Okay, so far, so good. I asked an additional question about who she was carpooling with - was there anyone I knew? Her response? "I'm carpooling with T's friends." Well, if you're going to T's wedding I would expect that you are carpooling with T's friends... or else why would they go to the wedding?

But to be fair... this one is better than the previous one (that I linked to above). Probably just a slip of the mind that forgot to respond to my actual queston (which was, "anyone I knew?")

The amazing valley

The Valley of Amazement by Amy Tan is a valley of amazement indeed. I think this is the longest I've taken over a book; was it three weeks or more? (unless if you count Les Misérables...and I'm not even sure whether Les Misérables wasn't quicker, because I was free at that time. And Les Misérables is five books...sort of.)

This book isn't like those mystery/adventure stuff I usually like. I wouldn't even say that it is one of my favourites. I didn't even rush to finish it; it's not the unputdownable kind. When I went to KL for almost a week in the middle of reading, I didn't even want to bring it with me. (and that added to the time I took to finish it, or else it would have been two weeks plus, maybe)

With this book, when reading it, I wanted to know what was going to happen next. But when I stopped, I didn't feel the urge to pick it up again, immediately. I didn't want to be interrupted while reading; I didn't want to rush to the next page; I wanted to enjoy a leisurely read. It was like entering into a world of wonder, where you look around you in wonder, in amazement - that's why it's amazing, a valley of amazement. There is beautiful prose, candid in describing ugly truths, yet not done distastefully. Then there are the touching parts, full of feeling. Oh, I am full of praise indeed, for this book. It is not the best for someone like me (since I prefer mystery), but it is amazing.

Nature without clouds, and clouds without nature

I'm merging two Photo Fridays into one this time.

Two Fridays ago, the theme was nature. Instead of the greenery normally associated with nature, I wanted to take a photo of clouds. But then, one day when there was a traffic jam on the way to work, I saw this mini-waterfall/rapids from my car. It was only a short drive out from my place, and I think I must have seen it before, but never really took notice.

The photo is rather blurred because I was taking it from my car, through the window, and with a lot of zoom.

As it turns out, it was a good thing I did not take a photo of clouds as my nature shot. Because the following week's theme was clouds!

I did not want to take the normal photo of clouds either... so I took a shot of some artificial clouds.

And with two cute kitties thrown in... why not?

What's on this evening?

Well, not exactly this evening. This programme dates back to September!

Last Friday's theme was evening. I thought of this idea rather quickly, but unfortunately I don't subscribe to newspapers...and I wasn't going to buy one just for a photo. I had given up on it, seeing that I don't usually go to places where we get newspapers to read either. But today we were doing housekeeping at the office, and someone discarded some old newspapers.

This one is from The Sun. It was a bit strange; only part of the day's programme was printed. But this is enough for my needs!

Small differences that are not so small

There is a difference between
a) asking someone to go to a party, and
b) telling someone that the host invited them to the party.

There is a difference between

a) wishing someone a happy birthday, and

b) telling someone that another person asked you to wish them a happy birthday.

There is a difference between

a) asking someone to do something that is not their job, and
b) telling them that you are unable to find someone else to do it and asking them for a favour.

There is a difference between

a) telling someone that you set an appointment when they are busy, and

b) telling someone that you set an appointment when they are busy because there are no other possible times.

Pokemon, Pokemon everywhere...

I spotted a bunch of Pokemon hanging out at Giant today.

Cute Pikachu, rather nice Squirtle. And after searching for pictures of Diglett and Weedle online, I've decided that the ones sharing a home with Pikachu and Squirtle must be Diglett. With the ground attached... whoever thought of doing that kind of thing?!

Cute Charmander, though it looks like there's no fire tail (I forgot to check for it when I was there). Cute Marill. (Edit: while reviewing this post, I just noticed that this box has Psyduck and even a Clefairy! I probably didn't pay much attention to them earlier because I'm not such a fan of theirs. But they actually look good...the Psyduck here is the correct colour; it's not supposed to be orange like the one in the other box)

Nice Lapras, Poliwhirl and Gengar (and is that pink thing behind Gengar a Pokemon?).

Bulbasaur looks a bit weird, but Jigglypuff looks nice. Jolteon and Snorlax were a bit hard to see, but looked okay...

And they even have Vaporeon (I don't think I've seen a plush Vaporeon before) and Psyduck! (in this box the Pokemon were a bit smaller)

The Pokemon are all are in those claw machines (the ones where you move the claw to catch a toy). Just before the last cube of Pokemon, there was this machine:

On the top racks, there are phone boxes. They precised on the machine that those are empty boxes... to prevent break-ins. The prizes need to be claimed elsewhere (probably the shop opposite the machines). Then at the bottom we have smaller Pokemon squeezed in... but they don't look so nice.

I have never seen this kind of machine before... so I took a look to see how it is played. The game is actually to move the stick left and right, then up... and then release a button or something to make it move forward and hit your prize out. The pink-edged rows are where the stick is supposed to move in and hit your prize.